Aaron Collins' Mixed Game Chapter 9
by Psychoflop
Summary: Solving problems


Chapter 9: 2-3-4-6-7 of different suits. Last of the Jailbreaks, last of the losers lounge, dissension inter-dimension, halls of doors that lead to overwhelming somewheres and nowheres, and 2 die.

"That's it, Aaron-1940. The last of us are free." shouted Aaron-1843 with a noted measure of excitement.

"Excellent. How many of us are left? The dimprints are still chasing us down to send us...wherever and the announcements have stopped. I don't need you to give me an exact count, rounding off to the nearest hundred will do just fine."

Aaron-1906 quickly surveyed the field of other hims and hers, including the newest batch that were freed. "I feel comfortable with saying about 1100."

"So we have about 2 hours and 20 minutes to fix everything and go home assuming that the first estimate we had was even accurate." calculated Aaron-1843

"First things first, fellow me. We need to find the exit before we do anything else." chimed in an Erin in the back who was too far away for anyone to see a number on her forehead, and there was no time to look for one anymore.

They looked in all directions that were possible. Some of them were distracted at the fact that their former cells were still moving (...converging), some were touched by those persistent dimprints and sent (...somewhere). But 1 Aaron found what all of them were looking for.

"It's down here guys, and gals. On the 1st floor. If there is such a thing as a 1st floor in an...nth dimensional space jail." said 1 of the quieter ones.

The Aarons and Erins somehow didn't trip over each other as they all headed downstairs while simultaneously avoiding being tagged by the dimprints (well, a few became dimprints themselves and just floated downstairs). After about 5 minutes, the last 1000 or so Aarons and Erins finally exited the jail...

...and entered the longest hallway any of them had ever seen (the ones who saw hallways back on their homeworlds anyway). It was white across every wall, cold, completely sterile, and had thousands of doors of varying sizes, shapes, colours. But none of that mattered, the dimprints had followed them into the hallway. So they were entirely on borrowed time. 1 Erin took initiative: "Everybody pair up and start opening the doors and keep opening them until we find a room that gets all of us home. If the dimprints touch your partner, team up with another of us close by. NOBODY SEARCHES ALONE!"

They began as ordered...

"That'll slow them down at least until we find Aaron-prime." said Inter-dimensional being #2, laughing a little. With only a few thoughts, they altered the pocket universe that they created to include the hallway connecting the jail to the casino in order to prevent the Aaron's and Erin's from discovering the casino. Of course, it came with a price.

"We lost all 3 of the rooms where they came in and the genre savviness of each player is only going to get worse from here on out." replied Inter-dimensional being #1. "On top of that, our control centre is now more vulnerable to others finding them (and it wasn't exactly hidden to begin with and our backup dimensional transporter is now part of what we created. Then again, if we didn't do this trade-off the Aaron's would be halfway to the tournament by now and that would be worse, so it's a partial victory. Plus we got ourselves another...stowaway in the room."

They both turned their attention to Marcel, who became the only human in the pocket universe who felt a need to go to the bathroom. He checked into the wrong room and like Susan, Tina and Rob before him, found the wrong room. Their eyes turned...blood red as they fired. Marcel's last moments alive consisted of him burning to death from the inside, he screamed in desperation, only to be notified "Go ahead and scream all you want, the room is soundproofed. And your mouth is still gagged" While the inter-dimensional beings walked behind the control console paying no attention to Marcel, who by now no longer had lungs to draw breath. Inter-dimensional being #2 did look at the ashes he left behind and remarked, "Not even worth cleaning up. I'll never get tired of saying that."

#2 stared at the console again "That stabilized the pocket universe by 17%."

"Excellent. But I made a key mistake earlier, you know what would stabilize it even more?" replied #1.

"What?" asked #2.

"Only 1 of us running things. Now that there's less to maintain and all."

#2 gulped, as #1's eyes turned purple...

"Lindsay's having another seizure! Someone help her, quick!" shouted Holly at the top of her lungs.

Justin was the one closest to Lindsay (intentionally, as Justin-1924 had an eerily high knowledge of medicine from his own world and from a few of the other Justin's). So he got the spoon back into her mouth and held her down until she stabilized.

"What did you see this time, Lindsay?" asked David K. As he handed her a glass of water.

Lindsay downed the whole glass in one go without even so much as taking a breath. Each of these seizures had left her progressively more dehydrated than the last (and exhausted her system moreso). Trevor brought over 2 more glasses from a nearby sink, same story. It took her the better part of 5 minutes to sort out the images in her mind AND have enough saliva in her mouth to put what was in her head to words:

"The Aarons, they're all out of their jail cells now. They're in a long hallway and they're trying to find...us...or a way home, there seems to be 2 different goals at hand for them at the moment. But pieces of us are still following them and sending them home (and they don't even remember being here). In a couple of hours, they'll have sent all the Aaron's back save for the original. Actually, there are about 50 or 60...alternate universe daughters of alternate universe me's I guess."

Trevor quickly surveyed the now very large losers lounge and spoke "OK, we've all got 4 main questions. So, let's divide into groups to answer them: Those marked "1924" will try to figure out the real nature of the mixed poker game, Those of us who are marked "1516" will try to figure out what those inter-dimensional guys will do with the winner, Those of us who are marked "1720" will try to figure out what would constitute the character of this "Aaron-prime" in order to better know him if we see him and those of us who are with different numbers will try to figure out what we're going to do about getting home without the help of our hosts. Ready? GO!"

Everyone trusted Trevor, for they knew that many of the Aaron's and Erin's did. They broke off almost immediately, with some wondering where Susan, Tina, Rob and now Marcel were in this...glorified maze that they felt like rats in.

Lindsay was able to walk over to the Northwest corner of the losers lounge on her own standing despite what was happening to her. Damon, Harley, Andrey, Aaron L., Ricky, Justin (who would've stayed with Lindsay if they were from different worlds anyway as he was the closest thing everyone had to a doctor around), Phoenix, Chiara, and Laura B. Soon followed, uniting Everyone in the room from Aaronworld-1924. Damon and Harley snapped into action in terms of getting chairs for everyone.

As he did in his duties as detective some time ago, Aaron Langemann took control of the desperate situation, asking "So, what is the real nature of these inter-dimensional beings? That has been the question that we've had since the beginning of this...little act of quantum theatre. But we've had no straight answer reached, no definitive conclusion given...discuss."

Ricky was the first of the group to offer his opinion on their...hosts. "There's definitely something that they're hiding. You don't just kidnap...what Lindsay...several thousand distinct copies of Aaron?"

Lindsay nodded, Ricky continued "Because you've lost track as to which Aaron is the original or first to jump to a different world altogether, then kidnap over 50 of his best friends without...sinister intentions in mind. I don't doubt that this mixed poker game that they came up with is helping them find this Aaron-prime guy. But I don't think that they have the morals to just give him a good talking to and send all of us on our way."

Damon (while agreeing with what Ricky had to say in principle), felt a need to play the devil's advocate. "But what about the copies? All of these copies of the original Aaron have been travelling between all of these different worlds. That's why our little adventure in the Royal York has been published in so many different places. I'm sure that Jimmy Epiphone's stories about the French Republic and the Khabarovsk Vodka robbery are Aaron's efforts to publish adventures while at the same, staying dead. That must be very...upsetting to the inter-dimensional beings. Maybe the kidnappings truly were necessary in order to save the multiverse as a whole."

Harley was furious at Damon. "Kidnapping...necessary? Throughout history, at least in our world, the censorship of ideas has lead to the worst times in the history of mankind. The censorship of all of the ideas non-christian faiths lead to the crusades is just 1 example. All of these Aaron's are guilty of is collecting the ideas from worlds that are not their own and just...writing them down for others. There have probably been multiple Aarons in 1 body as that would explain why so many worlds know who we are as I strongly doubt It's just a few Aarons who wrote about our hotel fun. Anyways, my point is that these inter-dimensional beings are trying to censor the idea of publishing books in many worlds that originated in 1 person's imagination. What's next? Do we bend the laws of time in order to kill Mary Shelley before she writes Frankenstein as I'm sure she's a popular writer beyond our world."

Andrey then had his English words come together in his Russian mind, adding "Harley's right, Damon. All of this is unnecessary. They should've just let the Aarons continue travelling. Nothing wrong many versions of the same someone with documenting our adventures in other places."

Justin had a puzzled look on his face, until he finally got out the question he had on his mind for a while now, "What if kidnapping is not the limit of the crimes these guys will commit in order to find Aaron-prime?"

The entire group went silent...until Phoenix articulated what everyone else was thinking quite well. "Well, then Susan, Tina, Rob and Marcel may have met some very unfortunate ends."

Chiara gasped at that thought (putting her hand to her mouth and everything), "With these inter-dimensional beings being exponentially more powerful than the average human being, what are we going to do?"

Laura B. Answered immediately, "Find a weakness and kill them before they send us to our homes or even worse, kill us or make us erase from existence."

The northeast corner of the room had the group from Aaronworld-1516 (well, most of them anyway). Solveig, Gregg, Heather, Holly, Megan, Karl, Julie, Jessica, Jen L., Fabio and Elizabeth were all in a circle so perfect that it could've passed for a clock (if not for a missing 12th person to represent the 12:00 hour and all). Elizabeth was the first among them to get the conversation going:

"So, what does the winner in this big mixed game really get?" asked the aging gearbody occasionally called robomom.

"I know a liar's eyes when I see them." began Heather. "In my line of work you get to see them everyday. In my line of work, you have to have them to protect yourself and your crew as well. These inter-dimensional ghosts have them more than I ever could."

Heather then burst into tears. Tears that she couldn't afford to shed when on the ship at sea or when selling her findings on land, "I'm so sorry Holly. I saw an opportunity and I seized it to knock you out. I was thinking like a pirate and not like a human being. I am so sorry my dear Holly, can you ever forgive me?"

Heather began rocking back and forth, not even Holly holding her tightly wouldn't stop the lady pirate from rocking. "There's no need to be sorry, sweet Heather. We were all duped into the false promise of supremacy of a group of worlds created by our friend and thus have no business ruling. If the roles were reversed, I would have taken you out, too."

Karl waited patiently until Heather was better before speaking, "If they kidnap 7000 different versions of someone many people consider a creative genius, I think they have no qualms about doing the same or even worse to us."

Gregg nodded in agreement with his bandmate, "I think it's safe to assume that the missing 4 are in that jail that Lindsay has been getting seizures of...or dead...or worse."

Fabio then added, "I am inclined to think that they're dead or worse. No one could be lost for this long, and if they were in that jail, Lindsay's seizures probably would've seen them somewhere."

Jessica had a blank stare the entire time that this conversation had been taking place. "Something has been troubling me since our band adventure to play at the Olympics got published. When I carried Aaron home that night, he felt...a lotheavier. Like there were 2 of them. Anyways, I don't think that murder even begins to describe the inter-dimensional intentions of our hosts. I think that the whole Aaronverse will be re-written against the will of Aaron-prime. Maybe even destroyed."

Solveig's eyes gave a look that was equally between horrified and agreeable. "All 7 thousand Aaronworlds destroyed because the copies of 1 man got curious and decided to have the adventures that he himself was writing about? That's wrong on such a multidimensional level. Who are they to decide how the multiverse is travelled?"

Megan actually had a quick answer to a question of such magnitude, without really thinking about it "Maybe they're just upset that someone else is infringing on their power without asking their permission. They want us all neutralized before there's too many Aaron's to handle."

Julie then had an epiphany "What if...we got some inter-dimensional travel skills of our own like all of the copies of Aaron? What if we saw all of the other Aaronworlds with our own eyes? How pissed off would the inter-dimensional beings be at us then?"

Jen L. Smiled at the idea of seeing at least the world of the intrigue novel, and many of the others that Aaron wrote. "I'll do you 1 better Julie, what if we started writing about OUR OWN worlds. I wouldn't mind having a Jenverse within or even completely outside of the Aaronverse."

The others had lanterns go off in their mind, simultaneously...

In the southwest corner of the room gathered the contingent known as the people of Aaronworld-1720. Adam, Sherry, Trevor, Kate, Allan, James and Jason may have been smaller than each of the first 2 groups, but they had enough people at hand to take on 1 of the hardest questions of their collective lives. Trevor, as he had a few minutes earlier, took control of the group he saw before him:

"So. What would constitute the character of this "Aaron-prime" in order to better know him from a crowd of copies of himself if we see him?" he asked to his follow vodka westerners.

"He'll be the most silent out all of them. If he is as 'special' mentally as has been alluded to in his creative works, than he made copies of himself that were more social than he was in order to better cope with the very worlds that he created. Look, as I'm supposedly closest to him neurologically I think I would make better guesses about Aaron-prime than most. If I had been writing about all of these other worlds and then travelling to them, I would make myself a more outgoing person to handle everyone too."

Sherry then raised her hand quickly, then spoke when she was the centre of attention "Building on that great idea Allan, I think that he will feel the most vulnerable and afraid of us, even though we are his friends. There was this 1 birthday of his where he requested that I sing to him privately. I was disgusted as I thought that meant something...well...more intimate than my talents and desires are willing to provide, then he broke down and cried at my even suggesting the idea of...that. I felt awful when I realized that he was just feeling that afraid of other people at the time that he only wanted to be around 1 person on his special day. I even took it as a compliment that he chose me over so many other options. But since we've been summoned here, I take some comfort that despite some versions of himself avoiding even us (even his own family), some hims sometimes have amazing events for his birthday for lots of us in front of very, very large crowds watching a popular pasttime. Still, the original Aaron has probably been afraid of his own shadow for years, if not decades."

Kate actually had a similar story to Sherry that had an...otherworldly twist. "The night that he died, I offered him a free one. He refused very quickly and it took me the better part of an hour to get him out of the foetal position in the corner of my room above the salloon. Then he had 1 of his nosebleeds and I had to put him to bed with no...fun for him. I now think that there was at least 2 other Aarons in our Aaron somewhere. Looking into his eyes, there 2 people there, if not more. So I'm with Allan and Sherry on this one."

James then cleared his throat, "He'll be in the background if it's still a crowd of Aaron's by then, keeping a low profile amongst the other Aaron's. Somehow I think that he'll know that if he is exposed in any way, that all of the other versions of him and herself and us are dead if he even so much as breathes too loudly."

Jason smiled, pointed at James and said "Nicely put, Undertaker. He's probably also covering his forehead so that no one notices the word 'prime' written on his forehead. Then again, that might actually make him more of a target as covering one's head is really obvious."

Adam then asked "Then why don't the inter-dimensional guys just walk up and down the levels of this 'jail' that Lindsay speaks of until they find the original? Why even bother to bring us to help them out?"

Trevor actually had an answer for that "Because up until now, we've only seen 3 of them. It's probably easier for 3 of them to outsource the legwork to us rather than have 3 beings sift through 7000 Aarons by themselves. OK, good work guys."

And in the southeast corner of the losers lounge were the miscellaneous of the Aaronverse that had been eliminated: Cindy, Laura X., Dan, Buckethead, Mike, Ivy and David K. All of them came from different Aaronworlds, and despite the time that they spent together in this place, there was no one among them willing to break the ice and start the conversation...

...Until Buckethead started playing something very fast and aggressive. He perfectly captured the frantic need everyone was feeling to solve their mutual problems.

"You said it, Big B. I'm not even really into heavy and fast music and I love that piece that you just played. Now how are we going to get home when we're technically outside of reality and have no idea how any of this shit works?" asked Mike.

Cindy decided to take out all of her frustrations from being here against her will in the form of the multiversal language of sarcasm "Oh sure Mike, let's just go out looking for an inter-dimensional mass transportation device under the noses of up to 3 inter-dimensional beings who may or may not have killed 4 of our travel companions in preparation of annihilating 7000 different planets containing about 24 500 000 000 000 people, more than 99% of whom have never met the guy who all of this is focused on."

Buckethead silently excused himself from the group for a few minutes, briefly hating his hatred of speech. While Ivy decided to speak up "Maybe we should just capture 1 of the inter-dimensional beings and hold them hostage until we get sent home. And by we I of course mean the Aarons and apparently Erins that are left, as well as all of us."

Dan needed to rein in that idea with a sense of pragmatism "If these guys can create a pocket universe to hold us in against our will, and have in fact killed a few of us to cover their true intentions than it may be impossible to kidnap 1 of them, even with so many people working together."

Laura X. Nodded at her in some Aaronworlds husband "You're right Dan, and despite Cindy's sarcasm I like Mike's idea. Sorry Ivy"

David K. Seemed inclined to agree based on his body language. Only asking "Theoretically, what would 1 of these transport things look like? Forgive me, my world lacks in technology. By several centuries it would seem."

Buckethead returned to the group with a large blackboard on wheels (6 square feet by some of the group's estimations). It contained a drawing of a large, 2000 square foot room (approximately 1:4000th scale on the blackboard) containing a machine that Buckethead labelled "Quantum computer.". There was a + sign containing some math equations labelled "Amount of energy required to create an Einstein-Rosen bridge or wormhole to get all of us home." followed by a second + sign with the words "Dimensional co-ordinates. Maybe the numbers on our foreheads can help get us home?" written on it.

The 6 in the group who were capable of speech merely stared at Buckethead in admiration and fear. How could the smartest one of all of them be so silent?

The Aaron's and Erin's had finally divided themselves into hundreds of pairs and had begun opening the doors: They varied in findings more than the Aaronworlds ever could. "The entire multiverse must run through here." thought Erin-1999 (No Columbine) out loud. "Or at least the major points of it." replied her partner known as Aaron-1982 (Stephen King never published Different Seasons). In order to ensure that no door was opened twice, the childhood game known as "leap frog" (to most people, anyway) had to come into play with each duo having to walk by several dozen other duos just to reach an unopened door to try. Also for them to consider, was the temptation to just go home if you had opened the door to your own world. It never happened to any of them, but the possibility was in everyone's mind. Better to go home on your terms then (possibly?) sent home by a dimprint (who were still on everyone's tails).

Still others kept some of their findings to themselves. Aaron-1986 (He never split his head open on his birthday) found a world that very few humans had ever set foot on. A world that was safe, hidden away, like a painting in so many dimensions, waiting to be returned to...all 13 of its' artists.

"It is not my place to return Galifrey and its' time lords...but the doctor will 1 day. Galifrey falls no more!"

An even quieter Erin separated herself from her partner for a few minutes, standing dead centre in the hallway of the multiverse. Her partner looked worried, staring deep into her eyes and seeing almost his own, staring off into space...beginning a seizure.

"Are you OK?"

She waved him away and nodded at the same time, "It's...Buckethead. MY WORLD'S BUCKETHEAD! He's here, wherever here is. And he is not 2 hours removed from playing a series of card games that have some kind of connection to all of us."

This Erin then saw a dimprint staring directly at her from the corner of her eye. She ran down the hall as fast as she could, not just to outrun the dimprint but she knew which door to open and had intent to reach it first. She reached the door that she was looking and horrifically screamed "THIS IS A DOOR THAT WE WANT! SOME VERSIONS OF OUR FRIENDS ARE HERE!" as the dimprint caught up, touched her, and made her disappear. The other Aarons and Erins all heard her in her final moments, and knew that she was telling the truth. They head to the door she reached, barely in time.

Aaron-1986 took the lead as he reached the door, asking "OK, how many of us have a background in quantum physics or something related to quantum physics?"

Exactly half of the entourage raised their hands. Satisfied, Aaron-1986 continued "OK, those who raised their hands will stay in the hall, looking for our ticket out of here. You guys know what a...multidimensional transporter that will get us all home will look like better than the rest of us. The rest of us, we go in here and find our friends. That should slow the dimprints down a little bit by splitting up."

They split up as intended, with more than 1 Aaron and Erin asking "Are we in a casino?" as they left the hallway to something even more unknown.


End file.
